lostcarnival | ⇨ FAERIE TALES

Hinawa plops down into the sidecar wordlessly. She doesn't particularly want to ride in this big metal machine, but it'd be faster than walking, she supposes. She still feels partly responsible for how badly things when they met the Rose Queen, which is why she's even here at all. Sunny curls up in her lap, looking nervous about going back to where all those bigger, scarier plants were.

She tries to think of some way to add to the story they're weaving. "As soon as they left the carnival grounds, they spotted the trail of bones, just like Papyrus said."

"Hm!" She starts the engine up, and they take off at a somewhat slow pace for the moment- just until they can actually see the bones. Once she does however, she reaches for the deck of cards stacked in a bracer she's wearing- this is a D-Wheel, after all, and so.

"Knowing what they would potentially face," Carly continues, "The Feathered Champion's weapons responded, giving her just what she would need for the path ahead. A full hand-!" she starts, drawing five cards and slotting them in a device at the side. It doesn't take her long before she's reciting a small move, finishing it with what matters most-

"I summon Fortune Lady Firey, and Fortune Lady Earthy!" she announces- and floating behind Papyrus' car, and Hinawa's car, appear two women with staves and batwing ears, one red and one brown. "...Phew. ....They should be able to use their element if we need it..!" she cheers, nodding to the others. "...Let's follow this trail now..."

Of course it's not long after they start following the trail of bones that things begin to grow spooky. It starts small, a cobweb on a shelf, a chill breeze in the air. Soon it grows dark, and a look up will show the ceiling of the Athenaeum has been replaced with a cloudy night sky. The shelves fade, slowly replaced with the sight of cracked and decaying tombstones, and in the distance an owl calls.

"Hmmm... It's not all roses and sunshine anymore," Papyrus observes, as their surroundings grow dim and grim. "Wh-Which... is a good thing!"

It's the first time he's ventured into one of the living stories with so much on the line - so much he can't back out of, if need be. They're not just searching for info, or keeping safe, but on a rescue mission. No matter how things go, they can't give up! Not even if it takes a little stammering, to look for the turns of phrase to swing the stories in their favor.

"After all, the Feathered Champion... knew better than to venture into a graveyard alone. She went guided by a skeleton, so the graveyard would think they belonged there, and wouldn't get mad."

"I don't think we want to see any roses on this trip," Hinawa reminds him. Then, as Papyrus tells the next part of the story, Sunny suddenly perks up and starts talking excitedly. "Phan! Phan, phantump! Phantump!"

"I think he's trying to add to the story?" Hinawa guesses, and Sunny nods enthusiastically. If anyone there could understand Pokemonese, he just said something along the lines of And they were accompanied by a ghost, too!

"Ahaha....well, spooky or not, we have plenty of light to guide light the way," Carly notes, 'Lady Fire' nodding and sending flame all along her staff. Carly herself calmly sends a string of violet forward- it won't burn anything, but it at least illuminates the path forward. "Mnn, and the bones are still there... 'With the bones to guide them, it wouldn't take long to reach their goal,'" she adds, taking the third person narration onward.

And with a phantom and a walking skeleton accompanying the Champion surely any spectre would feel no need to harangue any passerbys. But, while spectres and spirits may have had the presence of mind to turn away from such intruders, their where other lurking creatures that didn't. There's the sound of birds taking flight as the owl from before takes off into the night sky, and a flock of screeching bats follows soon after, some of them flying right at our heros before moving on overhead. The commotion may distract them, momentarily, from the sight of a rotting arm shooting up from the ground as corpses begin to pull themselves from the earth.Even if the sight isn't noticed it's impossible not to notice the foul stench the walking dead give off as they ample towards our heros intent on only one thing: a good meal.

At least one of the group understood Sunny's contribution, as Coolbone snuck along for the ride. After hearing somebody was buried in the ground after a trail of bones. The Marowak figures nobody will need them after this rescue, and then they're fair game for stealing. The best he could offer to the story is 'another skeleton', of sorts, so he doesn't bother.

It's more interesting to toss a bonemerang after those retreating bats, missing and readying a spare bone to try again... Only to flinch back into the car, bumping into Papyrus, when some rancid smell fills the air.

"Huh?" Papyrus startles at the contact, surprised to see the pokemon here. "Coolbone? What are you -- what's that smell?" He squints at the graveyard around him, seeing that there's motion out there... but without glasses along, not recognizing what they are.

Hinawa wrinkles her nose as the smell reaches her, and looks around until she spots it- a hand bursting out of the ground. She's immediately reminded of all the stories they told to keep children out of the Osohe cemetery at night- of things that walked the grounds under the light of the moon, and once they caught you...

"Something's coming out of the ground. I don't think it's Lauren." She says, a bit muffled from keeping her hand over her nose. "Our heroes, ah, continued their flight, pursued by the shambling monsters, but they were too slow to catch them!"

She hopes that works.

Smell?

Carly looks back, and grimaces, scowling further when she looks ahead to see the same thing. It's easy enough for her Fortune Ladies to handle airborne matters...but with a swallow as she tries to ignore the stench, she fills her bike with power and speaks. "Sensing the opposition, the Feathered Champion called upon her power over the flames of the other world- to burn only their enemies, and shield them as they moved!" she commands, violet fires coating the bike and surrounding them. With any luck, it should be more along the lines of how it worked in her world now...

They come out of the ground slowly, but persistently. Bony hands hang at their sides while skulls only partially covered with flesh stare in the groups direction. Some of them have eyes, others have only gaping sockets. Whether or not that's scary to a group that includes ghosts and skeletons is impossible to say, but as they shamble forward their ill intent fills the air. At least until Carly's flames shove them back.

Their soggy flesh and dry bones aren't quick to alight, nor are they deterred by the pain, continuing to try and push past it's barrier even as they begin to burn with violet flames. Even as they are held back, their numbers continue to multiply as more bodies come forth out of the darkness.

"Oh my god?" The group as a whole may not, but Papyrus rattles at the sight of them. The rotting flesh dangling from faces and limbs... Their blank expressions, their silent staggering forward... They're uncanny. Horrifying in their not-quite-right familiarity, far shoddier than Foster's constructions.

Plus, they're bones emerging from the ground, and the group is trying to follow a trail of bones, and could they be led astray by following the wrong ones...? He whips around in the sidecar, squinting forward for signs of gaunt arms reaching up ahead of them. "And, fortunately," Papyrus pronounces before even telling for sure, "the... monsters only rose as the heroes passed! Following behind... but not surrounding them!"

For good measure, he tosses a wedge of blue bones behind them. Maybe the zombies would respect a wall of bones more than a wall of fire.

Hinawa doesn't have anything she can throw at the zombies, and Sunny is hiding down at the bottom of the sidecar ~~because ghost-types are weak to their own type~~. She can, at least, add to the story: "The monsters behind the barriers found themselves unable to pursue our heroes, as they were just too strong to break through!"

Hopefully that would keep some of them off their backs.

She hates this. She hates this a lot. Revving the engine, Carly picks up the speed- sending her monstrous bike plowing over anything ahead, and practically daring anything to try throwing them off course. "As Fire was not the only one at her side, the Feathered Champion pushed onward- commanding the Earth itself to create obstacles for their enemies!" she snarls, 'Lady Earth' raising her staff at the command. With a wave, she sends spikes and chasms off their path but against the zombies, cracks moving through much of the surroundings. "Their time was clearly short," she adds, grimacing. "So it was fortunate that their trail would not have much farther to bring them..!"

Please, let that cheat of distance work, she thinks.

The zombies are utterly decimated in the wake of Carly and crew's narrative powers. Their storytelling combined with the powers of bone, earth, and fire have the zombies falling behind and literally falling into pits they can't jump out of as they are affected by Papyrus' blue attack. It's not long before the bone path comes to an end, the only hint that they've reached their goal.

It's with great relief that the bike moves on. Maybe the zombies will find workarounds and catch up, but at the least they're not actively pursued, and have time to work in. But, though the zombies haven't (yet) traveled here, their surroundings are still unfamiliar - the graveyard story's influence has changed their surroundings even this far. Dark sky, knotted trees and spiderwebs and wilted grass abound. And the bone trail comes to an end with little sign of bookshelves.

"Is this the end of the path...?" Papyrus asks the world at large, checking around. There's no others in sight, and these last couple are skewered in the ground, half-buried like a clue what they lead to. "Well! This is a good place to stop. And then start!" And he hops out.

"We made it?" She's only a little in disbelief. There were so many of those things! The story magic here really did work.

"In that case, we've got to go to Lauren!" Wait, she needs to add something: "Who should be right up ahead!"

"We made it," Carly confirms, driving until there is no more driving to be done. The bike slows to a stop, and Carly sets down the kickstand not that it's needed with two side cars. With the snap of her fingers, they are surrounded by walls of fire. "And to make certain they could work uninterrupted, the Feathered Champion thought to set forth a wall. A barrier that would at the very least give time to defend themselves against anything that could follow them..."

With a pause, she looks back- and then nods to Papyrus and Hinawa. "...I don't want to have Earthy begin digging until we know where he is- exactly where he is," she adds firmly.

[Pass]

"So we won't dig too long?" Papyrus wonders, scanning the ground with squinted eyesockets.

There aren't any really good signs where exactly Lauren was buried, just an end to the trail... And he hadn't thought to start dropping the trail until a few feet away. The last couple bones of the trail are within the firewall, at least, and he picks one up.

"Hey! What if... these bones can help us? They're for finding Lauren... Like divining rods! Bone finding bone." The scenery's still changed to the story surroundings, so maybe that logic will still work.

Magic bones are weird, no matter what way you slice it, but everything about this is strange, after all. "It may be worth a try... I doubt he could call out to us if he's buried underground."

"Hmm...So long as the bones show us properly, I can work with that..." she mutters, nodding to Earthy. "...Earthy- follow Papyrus' guidance; where his bones indicate, you dig, and dig with care, got it?"

The brown-garbed 'witch' nods, her staff at the ready from where the hologram/summon hovers.

⇨ FAERIE TALES

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